Death Fears Me
by KESwriter
Summary: Season Thirteen Finale spoilers. What might happen next.
1. Chapter 1

Enjoy!

Death Fears Me

It took me longer than I would have like to admit that I had been outsmarted. There was no easy solution. It was time to take control and lose everything else.

I turned to Garcia sadly.

"I love you, Penelope," I said and lowered my weapon

"Reid, DON'T!" she screamed.

"I'll go with you," I said to Agent Meadows. "Let Garcia go."

She nodded to the agents in the car and Garcia was pushed out.

"Reid, please," Garcia begged.

"Get in the car," Meadows said.

"You saved me once, Penelope," I said sadly. "Now I'm saving you."

"Not this way!" she cried.

"Now!" Meadows said.

I approached the car as Garcia stood frozen to the ground.

"Tell the team, I love them," I said.

Meadows pushed me in before Garcia could say anything. The car quickly sped off. A hood was thrown on my head before I could look back on the future I left behind to save the world.

…

I was presented a set of white clothing. They gave me privacy to put them on but took my old ones. I was then led into a room that was to be considered my sacred chamber for audiences. At the center was a fire in an oil drum. Two acolytes stepped forward gave me my clothes that been folded in a neat stack. I refused to let them see my hands shake as I took them. Then, without being asked, I dropped them into the flames.

Meadows appeared and presented me with my FBI credentials. I looked at them briefly and refused to shed a tear. I dropped them into the flames.

"You are no longer Special Supervisory Agent Dr. Spencer Reid," she said. "You are now the Messiah."

Author's Note:

I thought about this as a one-shot, but I want to give it more space to breathe now. I have most of it written in my head, so expect updates fast. Also, my computer screen keeps blinking and I want to post before it crashes.


	2. Chapter 2

I hope you enjoy this.

Chapter Two:

It has been two months since my "abduction" and we have relocated six times. This explains why they were so hard to track down. I am rarely alone for long and it is obvious they don't trust me. They should know better. By threatening my family, they've guaranteed my loyalty. I won't let anything happen to them, even at the cost of my soul.

Of the prisons I have been in, they "treat" me the best. Having watched my movements for at least a year, they always have what I like to eat and drink readily available. There is also a wide variety of my favorite forms of media and literature for me to choose from, including high-quality bootlegged editions of films currently in theaters. Most of their followers pay well to join the cult and part of it goes to keeping me as a well pampered pet.

My duties have been superficial at the most. They will force me to choose which city to serve as the new "temple" for followers to attend and then select the exact opposite of my choice. They think I am trying to drop leads to the FBI. I know now they are too smart for this, so I don't try. What they aren't considering how far ahead I am now thinking.

One day I am led into my sacred chamber and a young woman is laying on the ground bound and gagged. The fear in her eyes is horrible. They present me my old firearm. The implications are clear.

I pick up the gun and shoot her between the eyes. It is the least painful method. It is how I would want to go.

They take the gun away from me. Blood is officially on my hands. There is no way out of the fact that even with full cooperation, if I survive, I will face jail time. I am led out of the chamber and a piece of me is left behind, possibly my soul.

The next day, we move. While on the road, a computer printout is given to me. My FBI ID picture is featured in a story about the new leader of a cult of serial killers. In no place does it mention that I am a victim. The real victim's name is Sandra Virgo. I will carry her name with me, along with as many names as I can discover as I become the Messiah.


	3. Chapter 3

I hope you enjoy this.

Chapter Three:

I enter my bed chamber and find a blond-haired woman wearing nothing but a piece of sparkling purple negligee in the center of my bed waiting patiently.

"Come here," she said softly with a smile. "I've been waiting to give you the time of your life."

"No thanks," I said dully.

"But you must be so tightly wound," she pouted slightly. "Come here and let Lavender fulfil your every need."

"I need you to get out," I said rudely.

She slowly crawls out. "Are you sure?" she asks sweetly.

"Positive," I said.

She opens the door and a man appears with a gun aimed at her head.

"She lives to serve the Messiah," the man said. "Or she does not live at all."

That night I learned nothing belonged to me. Not even my own body. If they wanted me to "relax" they would make sure I was relaxed. It didn't matter what I wanted. What mattered was that I lived. My definition of being alive was becoming less and like the one I remembered.

…

Three months later, they begin to listen to me. They ask for my input on where to stash bodies and I give them honest answers. I tell them which cult members are most likely to turn them in and give guidance as how the "unworthy" should be cast out while not attracting suspicion. My driving instructions are even followed when we relocate as I know from experience which roads are more treacherous than others in the event of falling into a trap or losing tires due to potholes.

The FBI gets close to catching one of our followers two months later. I am asked about how to retrieve the follower who might share secrets and for the first time, I get to enact an elaborate plan. It is followed to the letter. The follower is killed, and a message is left for the FBI.

The next day a page of pictures is at my breakfast plate. They are pictures of the team at a restaurant. All of them are smiling and toasting. I look more closely at J.J. though. Her grin isn't as wide. This is my reward for serving as the Messiah as well as a warning: They are never far from harming my team.

…

A month later, Lavender is gone. I ask where, and no one answers my question. A week later, she is replaced by another woman in a similar purple negligee. Her name is Sophia. She has brown hair and freckles but says and does the same things as Lavender.

I do not miss Lavender, nor do I enjoy the company of Sophia. Three more women in purple underwear will introduce themselves to me over the course of the next eight months. Having stopped believing anything, including hope, I merely log their names and add them to the number of people who have been harmed because of my presence. The only thing I choose to put faith in is the fact that I am capable of some form of meaningful survival. My soul was a lost cause the minute I chose to let Garcia live.


	4. Chapter 4

I hope you enjoy this.

Chapter Four:

The FBI managed to infiltrate the cult. The member was found a few days in due to the surveillance policies I had implemented. He was brought before me for punishment.

Agent Reginald "Reggie" Brooks was a fairly new agent. He had been joined the undercover crimes unit only a few years ago so I barely knew him. To his credit, he didn't beg or try to call me Reid. He simply glared at me.

"Do your worst," he sneered.

"You have a daughter, don't you?" I asked. "Age four?"

He refused to answer.

I took the gun offered and shoot him right in the center.

"You will live, but you will never chase after her as she learns to ride her bike or walk down the aisle at her wedding."

Brooks doesn't say anything. He merely holds on to the wound.

I turn my back on him.

"Patch him up and drop him off at the nearest hospital. Agent Brooks, remind the team I am no longer a member of their family. I don't show mercy anymore."

"Traitor!" he grunts out.

I don't look back.

…

The new "servant" as I choose to call them, is wearing nothing when I arrive at my sleeping chambers. She had strawberry-blond hair.

"Happy Birthday to you," she sang softly. "Happy Birthday to you my Messiah. Happy Birthday to you."

It has been two years since my abduction. Last year they got me a bottle of wine from Rossi's collection along with a digital photo frame loaded with twenty-five pictures of my team.

I begin to get undressed. "I preferred the wine," I said.

"I'll change your mind about that," she said coming forward and helping me.

Maybe I was more stressed than usual, but her caresses got to me. She was more muscular than previous servants and had scars on her abdomen.

"You're a cop? Aren't you?" I said.

"Try again," she said smiling. "Federal agent originally based in New York."

"What's your name?" I asked.

"I like to be called Claudette," she said.

"What's your real name?"

"I like to be called Claudette," she said. "And you miss being called Reid."

"You should have run, Claudette," I said. "This position is a death sentence."

"I know," she said nuzzling me. "But it is worth it to save someone as special as you."

"I am beyond saving," I said.

She climbed on top of me.

"You're not a bad person, Spencer Reid," she said. "You're surviving, and I know you're going to take this cult down eventually with cunning and sheer will power."

Tears fill my eyes.

"You don't know what I've done. I paralyzed a man the other day without looking back."

She wiped the tears from my eyes.

"You carry the pain your heart. You feel the guilt more deeply than any person on this planet Spencer Reid. You're a survivor and you are making a difference in ways you can't begin to imagine."

The tears won't stop now. She got off me and snuggled beside me. I cry into her chest. We lay together and the pain of years in captivity flow out. I do not even know her real name and yet I know already that I love her more than any servant I've had before. It will break me when she leaves.

…

I have other issues to keep me occupied with though. There are people who are questioning my leadership even as I have made the cult five times stronger than what had abducted me. It is time to make an example of the dissidents.

At the meeting I round up the loudest voices and personally beat them with a whip. I dared anyone who challenged my authority to stand up. No one does. I then take a gun and aim it at the dissenting voices and ask which one of them I should kill. One person bravely offered his own and I choose the person who is shaking the most and shoot her in the head.

"NO MERCY TO THOSE WHO QUESTION THE MESSIAH'S WILL" I roared.

Everyone bows, and I left. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that even the agents who abducted me look disturbed.

…

Claudette massages my back as I vomit my guts out. She does not judge and even wipes my face. Even as I am weak from heaving, our sex is carnal. I need her so badly. Being with her makes me feel more alive than I have since I threw my FBI credentials into the fire.

It is not always about sex though when I am with her. She asked me questions about things such as Pi and we debate moral relativism. I discovered she had a degree in criminal justice and minored in political science. This is the closest I have had to having an intellectual equal by my side since before my abduction.

She also has news for me. Garcia married a year ago is expecting her first child in four months. The International Response Team has been reinstated and Simmons is now in charge of it. Rossi retired last year and is writing a new book. No one else has left my team. They still believe I am innocent and miss me horribly. I wanted to call them fools, but Claudette hushes me. Hers and my hair are wet with tears by the end of her updates.

…

The day after I am certain Claudette is gone for good, I summoned former agent Meadows to my chambers. I promptly began to collapse her windpipe.

"Do you want to live?" I asked her.

She frantically nodded and tried to say yes.

"Then no more night servants," I said forcefully. "Is that understood?"

She does her best to nod and try to say yes. I put another ounce of pressure on her throat before throwing her to the ground.

"Get out of my sight," I said.

She left quickly. I doubt Meadows ever imagined me changing from puppet to ruthless puppeteer like this. It may have been the initial desired result, but now they are seeing the monster they have made me.

Meadows is good to her word. Another servant does not replace Claudette. I cry into my pillow on my own now and that is the way I prefer it.


	5. Chapter 5

I hope you enjoy this.

Chapter Five:

It took me an additional three years to build and destroy the system that abducted me. A total of five years to grow the cult ten-fold in a way that the FBI could take apart by following the clues I left them. I needed to be active in its growth to know how to dismantle it in the end. At one time, possibly one in ten active serial killers were in my cult. I know I am a monster, but I take no pride in these statistics. A cleverer person might have found a better way to escape, but unfortunately, I am not that clever.

They find where I am currently operating in St. Louis. I heard Prentiss clearing the rooms before she entered my meditation chamber, where I was sitting and reflecting on my future.

"Reid?" she asked on certainly.

I put my hands behind my head and look into her eyes. They're more tired since the last time I've had a good look at them.

"Reid?" she asked again.

I watched her closely and began to lose control.

"Take me home, Emily," I said as tears filled my eyes.

She rushed forward and hugged me. I could hear J.J.'s voice coming next.

"Spence!" she cried and rushed forward.

Prentiss quickly let go and I am in the full embrace of my best friend. She's lost me too many times and I know this won't be the last.

…

I am stripped of my all-white attire for the first time in five years. J.J. thought ahead and brought a spare set of my clothes. I wear a deep plum dress shirt over black pants. I look at my reflection in the mirror and see someone I once vaguely knew.

While I am under arrest for mass murder, I am permitted to go home to DC on the team's jet. Once we are in the air and the handcuffs are taken off, I feel like a doll passed from one person to another. Garcia is there along with Rossi. They can't stop squeezing me or promising that everything will work out. None of them know what I have become. To them I look like Spencer Reid, but the truth is I feel as though I share his name only. I am not the Messiah, but I am an upholder of the law anymore either.

When it is time for me to return to my seat, Prentiss watched me.

"You haven't said much," she observed.

"I plan on fully cooperating in the investigation," I said.

"That is not what I meant," she said.

"Emily," I began to say. "I, I'm not who I used to be."

"But you're still our friend and a member of this family," she said.

"I wish I wasn't," I said slowly.

"Why?" she asked.

"There is just too much pain," I said.

"You aren't alone, Spencer," she said touching my arm. "And you never will be again."

"Thank you, Emily," I said.

"You're welcome, Spencer," she said kindly.

…

I spend the rest of the day discussing the details of my operation with prosecutors. I waive my right to an attorney despite Rossi promising to pay for the best attorney imaginable. I have been waiting and preparing what I wanted to say for a long time.

"How many people did you kill personally?" the DA Alec Wendel asked.

"Thirty-two people," I said.

"Former Agent Meadows?"

"I killed her for insubordination, two years ago," I said. "Her body is with the rest in the field in Utah I outlined on a map."

"Even with full cooperation," Wendel said sadly. "You're going to jail for the rest of your life."

"I know," I said. "Just try to destroy the organization that cost me my soul."

He pats me on the back. "I will," he said.

The first night I am allowed to have a cell by myself. As a gift for my cooperation they give me the writing materials I requested. I continue to write to everything of use late into the night by the dim light of the moon. Time is running out and I need to get every detail down.

…

The next day I am arraigned. I made no argument for any reason to release me on bail. I look back the team before they pull me away. I gave them an assuring smile. I wanted to say it is alright because I have made peace with my future.

After a shower, I am dressed in orange again. I know how to behave in prison now and keep to myself. None of these intimidating figures scare me anymore. These monsters once had reason to worship me, now I am among them, where I belong.

I am assigned cell at night with another person. We did not talk. I heard him whimper in his sleep. I buried my head in the thin pillow and tried to get some rest.

The door clanked open early in the morning and before I can react, I feel a cord wrapped around my neck. Fighting is futile. I knew the minute I surrendered I had made too many enemies to survive prison.

My life flashes before my eyes. The good and the bad, I try to focus on the good. There is a bright light, but I am not certain it equals heaven. All I hope for is what I think I deserve: punishment with the promise of peace, eventually.

In my last breath I call out for my mother. I love her, and she deserved a better son in the end. I hope she can find the peace she deserves too.

…

Four Years Later:

Every night before I visited Spencer, I was given a birth control. I had prepared for this by learning how to hide them in my throat and then crushing them into a fine powder undetectable in my cell.

There were other agents to help me orchestrate my apparent suicide. It had taken months of planning but in the end, I believe end result was worth it.

"Hi Aunt J.J!" my daughter Diana waved when we arrived at Quantico.

"Hey there!" J.J. said. "How was that spelling test?"

"Ten out of ten," she said delightedly.

"Excellent," she said and then looked to me. "How are you, Andy?"

"I'm doing good," I said. "White collar still lacks the adrenaline rush I am used to."

"How badly do you really miss it?"

I look at Diana.

"Hardly at all," I said with a smile.

"Is it time?" Diana asked.

"Just about," I said.

Spencer's old team is waiting when we arrive. Included are few faces I had heard but never met, such as Aaron Hotchner and Alex Blake.

It taken years of repeated petitioning to finally get his name on the wall of fallen of remembrance of fallen FBI agents. The cult was destroyed and every killer under Spencer's command were apprehended within a year of his death through the evidence he and testimony he had left behind. It wasn't enough until Rossi donated the entire profit of one of his books (the one he dedicated to Spencer) to an influential politician, that we were able to get this ceremony established.

It took less than two minutes for Spencer's FBI photo to be attached to the wall. There was clapping and then Diana approached the wall by herself. She reverently touched the frame.

"Daddy," she said softly.

"Daddy," I said proudly.

"When will you tell me, what happened to him?" she asked. "And where is he now?"

"All you need to know now is that he died a hero," I said. "And where he is, is by your side watching with love."

"Really?" she asked.

"I promise," I said.

Garcia appeared.

"Cookies and cake in my lair!" she announced.

"Yay!" Diana said and followed her.

I lingered and looked at Spencer's photo. He died believing he deserved to go to a torturous version of the afterlife. I light a candle at church every Sunday and pray every night that he knows that couldn't be further from the truth. I pray that he finds the peace he deserves.

"Mommy?" Diana said.

"I'm coming," I said.

I don't glance back again. Spencer gave me a future far better than I could have imagined. I owe my world to Spencer Reid.

THE END

Author's Note:

I know. I always aim for hope at the end though. I don't usually kill off main characters, but it felt like a natural progression here. I promise I won't do it again! Thanks for reading as always and please consider dropping a review! It is weird to enjoy writing something like this, but I did. Thanks for the support and I hope you'll consider and reviewing my other stuff. Good Night!


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